Comfortable win for Vettel in Valencia

Sebastian Vettel eased to another victory in the 2011 F1 season after he won the European Grand Prix, raced in Valencia, Spain.

The German led throughout the race by almost constant 3 second lead over his opponents, with a final push in the last stint of the race driving him to his sixth victory of the season by a 10.8 margin.

Proving that Ferrari is improving as the season progresses is the second place finish by Fernando Alonso, in front of his home crowd. At the start both Ferraris got ahead of Hamilton with Felipe Massa flying between both drivers and still trying to grab second place from Webber. Failing to do so he would lose his position to his team-mate placing himself in fourth place.

As the race progressed, Alonso kept close to Mark Webber and on lap 21 managed to overtake the Aussie in a brave driving move. Still the Spaniard didn't manage to leave Webber behind. When Webber came for his second pit stop a lap sooner than Alonso, he managed to recover his position.

But Alonso didn't give up and in the third stop Alonso gained enough advantage with three extra laps on softs to take away second place from Webber. Just nailing to get to second place Alonso had his life eased when the Red Bull driver was told by his engineer to back off and to take care of his gearbox until the end of the race. Webber came home in third place.

Having some trouble with the pit stops Massa ended up falling into fifth place behind Lewis Hamilton. Towards the end of the rac he started closing up the gap to the Brit but he never threathned the McLaren driver's position.

As for Jenson Button, the McLaren driver had a very low-profile race this afternoon. Having been passed at the start by Nico Rosberg, Button battled with the German until the sixth lap to recover the position and the mission had been completed the front runners were already out of reach. A problem with his KERS system would see him finish the race in sixth.

Rosberg had to fight with Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari for a while in order to secure his final seventh spot. The Spaniard was the biggest surprise of the afternoon. Having started back in 18th, a two-stop strategy pulled Alguersuari up the order with a final effort securing him eighth place over Force India's Adrian Sutil. Top-ten was closed by Nick Heidfeld.

In a very brave attempt, Sergio Pérez opted for a one-stop strategy in Valencia, although he just missed out on the point positions, finishing in 11th, behind Hidfeld.

Michael Schumacher's opportunity to finish in the points ended when he was forced to make an extra stop for a new wing, after making contact with Vitaly Petroc as he was returning to the track after his first tyre change. The German finished 17th, while Petrov was never able to recover from a lousy start.

Fastes Lap: Sebastian Vettel, 1:41.852

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